It is very easy to miss a developing fault/faults in your acoustic guitar if you’re not well acquainted with it. How do you get well acquainted with it? By cleaning it thoroughly each time you pick it up to play and once again when you keep it back after playing.
Sound a bit excessive? Remember, if your guitar gives you real joy and it’s something that you cherish, no amount of effort is too much. If it’s an all-wood (not laminate) instrument, it requires that much more care for it to continue sounding as good as it does.
Take this Yamaha for instance
It had come in for a buzz on the fretboard and a change of strings and it seemed well taken care of (in comparison to the other instruments that come in). Yet, as I was inspecting it, I spotted this crack in the bridge.
The owner was unaware of it and even shocked to discover it, but I reassured him that there was nothing that rosewood dust and superglue could not heal.
Granted that this is a difficult area of the instrument to spot something like a crack – with all the bridgepins and strings and the saddle – but regular cleaning of all areas of the instrument would certainly have brought it to light.
Then, I went about trying to find where the buzz was coming from.
There were three or four fretwires I found which refused to be seated level by just tapping.
Also, look at the main photograph again. Can you see the saddle curl in its slot? That is because the saddle slot was not cut straight at the factory. Magnifying the issue is the fact that #Yamaha uses plastic saddles and nuts in most of its lower end instruments.
I told the owner that replacing the plastic saddle with a bone element would tremendously reduce the curling of the bridge, considering that bone is much stiffer and denser than plastic. He agreed to have it replaced.
After I took the strings off and was inspecting the guitar closer, the fretboard showed some strange scratches.
They don’t appear too clearly in the photograph but they leapt up at me. It was as if someone had seen guitar maintenance videos one too many and had gone to town on the fretboard with a razor blade – all in the wrong direction.
Though I made a mental note of asking the owner about them, I forgot when he came to collect the guitar.
Now that it was here, I began by dealing with the bridge and while it was curing, I tackled the fretboard and the fretwires.
The fretwires were level-sanded, recrowned and polished, while the fretboard – terribly dry, by the way – was given some much needed love.
Meanwhile, the scratches too disappeared
The bone saddle was calibrated, shaved to size and installed and a fresh set of strings was thrown on. As expected, the curl in the saddle was reduced to quite an extent.
And just like me, I forgot to take a photograph of the healed bridge!
The owner though was pleased that the buzz was gone.
